Woh not trying to be rude at all. I am by no means saying America is better. I am say that Americans complain about being "poor" when they are not. We have some public housing systems that give unnecessarily large houses to people who need them. Would be better to make 3 houses out of one and use the space better.

I do understand why they're doing it. All I'm saying is that someone has to break that evil circle. Blaming it on everyone else is exactly what's causing it.

China's build-up is not a "reaction" to their economical development. They simply have enough money to try to challenge America even though they have lots of military bases everywhere. I believe that just getting a few nukes should be enough for your national defense, so why do you need super expensive precision bombs, etc, when everyone has weapons that can reach everywhere on earth and are pretty much unstoppable? An MLRS nuke is almost impossible to completely stop, let alone a few hundreds/thousands, so what's the point of any other weapons for national defence?

If China invests heavily into new weapon systems, the US also has to spend more.Which in turn will force Russia to invest more.And so on.

Cutting the military budget is nothing the US can pursue (decide) alone.

Sorry, I really don't see your point. The US military budget is more than 3 times as high as that of China and Russia combined. The US have 11 operational aircraft carriers with support fleets, China has been struggling for years now to get an old Russian carrier which they bought operational (which would not do them much good in the coming years, or even decades, since they don't have aircraft that can land on them). Same with the rest of pretty much anything military. I do think the Americans could save a few bucks without threatening their national security

The reason why we have war is because of human nature. I would love to live in a perfect utopia but you will always get that one ass whole who's like, "all your base belong to us."

Not saying China is doing that just that you have to be cautious. China is also know for doing very unexpected things. Right now if I recall correctly, they have their sites set on Taiwan and a Japanese island. China wants to be a major world power. They do not want war as it would be too costly for them. Same goes for Russia and US. Thing is, if Russia were to drop military spending, then it would be not so costly for someone to make a move.

As for all our crap in the Mid-East, US should have backed off years ago.

PS: where was it you wanted to go in America? I think Asia and Europe have more to offer when it comes to site seeing as they are much older societies. Come on castles that are 100s or 1000s of years old still standing? That is freakin awesome. If you are an outdoorsy person then I would recommend Yellow Stone in Wyoming. Got some really cool geology going on there.

PS: where was it you wanted to go in America? I think Asia and Europe have more to offer when it comes to site seeing as they are much older societies. Come on castles that are 100s or 1000s of years old still standing? That is freakin awesome. If you are an outdoorsy person then I would recommend Yellow Stone in Wyoming. Got some really cool geology going on there.

Haha, I've been over most of Europe and in a little bit of Asia. Castles are cool too I'm interested in the Nature parks, for one. I know a couple of people who have travelled the USA from east to west coast. The pictures they had (and their stories) were amazing, very varied and some jaw-dropping sceneries. And the people apparantly are really friendly, too

never thought I would here someone say Americans were friendly....yeah we got many fun natural thing here to see. I have not been around the US a whole lot so I cannot say that I have see everything but I would recommend Grand Canyon (scary as shit) and Yellow Stone. Yellow Stone is basically one giant active volcano. There are all sorts of geysers and mud pit things where the mud is bright vibrant colors. Then there are some natural water falls and the such which is always nice.

I'm not to keen about visiting USA againseems like more and more police state by the minuteI'm afraid I would get locked up at the airport for carrying an USB thumbdrive

fun fact: In the UK you HAVE to give the police your password to decrypt your harddrive or whatever if its seized by the police and relevant, if you dont you get locked up for up to 5 years, which actually happensSo bottom line: you encrypt one USB thumbdrive, forget password, SOMEONE tells the police your doing illegal stuff and or drugs/child porn, police seize your stuff, you dont know the password of this stick, you go to jail. bam

I dont like germany, but at least we still do have good laws, especially in the IT region due to the chaos computer club and other entities... (on topic: germany was one of the only countries to outright reject ACTA and not sign it)

i recommend vegas if you want to lose all your money. Oh, and ra4king's house.

Dude my house is the bomb.com

Anyway, cool thread. I unfortunately couldn't vote but I supported Obama over Romney, mostly because Romney will bring along his entire anti-science anti-intellectualism Christian fanfare. Also I'm pro-gay marriage and pro-choice.

Concerning healthcare: it should not be a luxury. Health care is a universal right. "Obamacare" is a step in the right direction but a true single-payer universal health system (like Canada, Sweden, etc...) would be best.

Concerning military: yup our military spending is greater than the next 10-14 countries combined. We need to pull out of the Middle East and reduce our military spending, using the surplus to pay off the debt and fund *education*.

i recommend vegas if you want to lose all your money. Oh, and ra4king's house.

Dude my house is the bomb.com

Anyway, cool thread. I unfortunately couldn't vote but I supported Obama over Romney, mostly because Romney will bring along his entire anti-science anti-intellectualism Christian fanfare. Also I'm pro-gay marriage and pro-choice.

Concerning healthcare: it should not be a luxury. Health care is a universal right. "Obamacare" is a step in the right direction but a true single-payer universal health system (like Canada, Sweden, etc...) would be best.

Concerning military: yup our military spending is greater than the next 10-14 countries combined. We need to pull out of the Middle East and reduce our military spending, using the surplus to pay off the debt and fund *education*.

Warning long post but don't fret it will be my last. Quick note to non Americans. This is all based on how America does things and I am in no way saying that our way is best by any means.

The pro-gay/pro-abortion things really bugs me. Republicans will never change abortion....ever. Gays will never lose any more rights then what they have. Give it a little longer and they will get marriage. These topics really are not that important when you compare them with things like spending. So what if homosexuals can get married and not get jobs.

I agree that health care should be a necessity but right now there is no law saying we have a right to it. A basic system to pay for things like simple surgeries, broken arms, routine check ups would be great but keep things like plastic surgery, sex changes, and abortions out. Do that and you will have my full support.

Now for the long one. There are only a few objections I real have with the content from the poster in that link. First, he/she comes off as a complete ass when they start off with insulting whom ever the read is. Like they said, there is mass amounts of propaganda against it and it is likely readers are there to get some facts. The first thing that really caught my attention was that everyone is suppose to just believe this person read it and that it means what they say. Say it does. Lets look at the biggest issue on there. Spending. 1.7 trillion. to jump start it...ok lets go with that. Now fist if you read the source the estimates are extremely inaccurate as they say themselves. Fact is you cannot just give millions of people health care without taking a huge hit. What makes things even more ridiculous is that this will supposedly generate money. By 2021 it will almost pay itself off....man if it was this easy to make money I am going into the wrong field. This does not just magically work financially. 1.7 trillion is also a huge investment that will pay if in how many years? Ask a company if they can run in the black for 8+ years. Often, if something is too good to be true, it isn't. I really wish we could add health care for this cost but it is just not possible.

The next thing is all the "churches will not have to pay for abortions." If this was true why is it that the Catholic church is fighting this so vehemently? Are they just THAT crazy? I don't think so.

Now I hope I can clarify some of the reasons why many countries still have armies...if you look at the actual amount of men/troops/tanks/vehicles/planes/all that jazz be are in the lead but not by what we should be given our spending. This is because we invest copious amounts of money it to research projects. You know, throw 2 billion at some project to make a slightly more fuel efficient jet. Rebuild the entire navy because we want more fuel efficient boats.

If you look at what we have and what we are trying to protect it is amazing we are doing it this successfully. Nukes are simply not an option. We have them so we can keep others from using them as they are one of those "no body wins" cases. Thing is, we can still go to war without nukes. Look at the cold war. My father was part of it towards the tail end and I can till you it was a war but not like WWII. Basically, lots of "flexing." If we dropped all our troop and cut down the military then that would be a sign of weakness which could lead to increased tensions which could lead to war. China as increase military spending by 10% every year for many years now and all the estimates we have on how much they are spending are given to us from them...they are a closed country so the figures are relatively meaningless. We can cut spending but not to the point that everyone seems to want.

Thank you for your thoughts, it was an interesting read. For me the main issue is wealth differences between people in a country, and how this translates to next generations. Health care for everyone is part of this, but only part. There's a vicious cycle that tends to make children of people who do not have money also poor. If you have a million dollars, you can lend it out to poor people; you get richer, they get poorer, and you don't even have to do anything for that. If your parents don't have a good education and are poor, your chance of being educated well is low. If your parents didn't teach you how to live healthy, you'll have a much harder time learning how to live healthy than if they did.

The American Dream, as far as I understand it, is one of social mobility, as the land of opportunity. However, in reality, social mobility in the USA is pretty much the lowest of all Western countries (only the UK, modeled after the US in many respects, is worse). If you are born poor in the USA, you will die poor (or at least, the chances are pretty high you will). Not only is this fundamentally unfair, in the end this is not a sustainable situation either. Public health care is one part of setting this right: providing care to everyone (even if it is of a lower standard than the rich get now) is ultimately an instrument for supporting social mobility for me, which may help in people from poor social backgrounds get a real chance in society. Same with providing children of poor parents with support in financing their education. Same with many other things, including taxes on financial transactions (putting a brake on mechanisms which make money flow from the poor to the rich).

Hah, I need to get to work now Sorry for my wall of text, just some thoughts.

Everyone wants to look at the downsides of the electoral college. And it is a quirky system whose roots only really make sense if you look at the historic reasons for its existence. BUT consider how bad a recount situation would be in the states if the election was by popular vote. With some minor tweets it would be quite reasonable (like more electoral votes and requiring they be distributed in portion to the given state's percentages)

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According to polls, the entire world is happy except Pakistan and just under half of the USA.

Yeah in France virtually everyone wanted an Obama win. I asked a number of people why and nobody could give a rational reason. (SEE: below)

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Lol, you seem to assume that the end of America's economy literally means the end of the world?

Umm..a true US economic crash would cause world-wide economic upheaval. That's just the way it currently is.

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The evidence is George W Bush. He started this whole mess, and his economic plans were almost exactly the same as what Romney proposed.

Look further back. Regan's reduction in oversight of banking practices are a huge contributing factor. As much as I disliked "W", alot of people were had a hand in making the mess.

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In US we have this whole separation of church and state thing...kinda is a big deal.

Only in spirit. Although the "separation of church and state" notion is constitutional by supreme court ruling (don't remember the title..but it was about bussing in one of the eastern state). However that's getting trampled on all-over-the-place (sadly).

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Your freedom of religion begins with your own practice of it, and it ends with my freedom from it.

I would restate that...and it is in fact my only moral code: My rights end where someone elses begin. I wish more people would buy into that notion.

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Policy discussions on a game programming board are turning out about as well-researched and reasoned as I expected, sorry for having jumped in in the first place. Y'all have fun with it.

Do you really have a reasonable expectation of having that with anyone? Let's face it, politics for most people is a religion. It's not based on anything rational. And religion is like software end-user licenses. Users just scroll to the end of the text without reading and click: "I agree".

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... see JFK but he did pay the price ...

Never understood the JFK myth.

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Cutting the military budget is nothing the US can pursue (decide) alone.

That's smoke and mirrors. The real problem with US reduction of military expenditure is purely pragmatic and economic. The money comes from federal coffers and is used in states. If you reduce military spending, it's highly likely your state is now received a large chunk of less cash. All the services which various bases use? Bye-bye. Do we need that new fleet of "X" which cost billions and is produced in "N" states? Do you vote against it if you represent one of those "N" states? Probably not if you want to get re-elected. It's a snake which is eating it's own tail. In addition I have the impression that a fair number of people use the military to start out in life: to learn a trade or to get money for higher education. Also no sane politician ever wants to be in the position to need to vote for a reinstatement of the draft if placing people on the ground was deemed necessary. Now of course all of these are "short-term" issues and it would be pretty easy to use some of that money in much better ways which more than address these issues in the long term. Sadly people only care about the long-term in a very abstract way, and only if the long term solution doesn't have a short term impact on them. So it goes.

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If we dropped all our troop and cut down the military then that would be a sign of weakness which could lead to increased tensions which could lead to war.

Err..no. Technical superiority is more than sufficient. You only need a lot of bodies to occupy foreign soil. Unless my history is getting too rusty, the last time that was successful was the Romans, unless you count post-WWII...which you really shouldn't.

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never thought I would here someone say Americans were friendly

Of the people I know that have visited the states, that's one of the most common things you'll hear...same for Canada.

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Concerning healthcare: it should not be a luxury. Health care is a universal right.

The trouble with healthcare is all the solutions suck. OK I haven't been paying attention on how the reforms are working-out in Canada, but most countries that have very good healthcare systems from an individual standpoint are massive economic drains if not outright disasters. Sadly too many people are abusive of things they deemed free...or worse free and their "right". You need a very civic minded populous to have any hope of success.

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The pro-gay/pro-abortion things really bugs me.

What should really bug most Americans is that issues like gay-related anything, abortion related anything and region based anything is "bait-and-switch" to avoid any real issues. Not that they same thing doesn't happen elsewhere...just the topics are different.

It's surely not your intent, but placing these together is somewhat insulting. Not asking for a response, but by "no abortions"...not in cases of rape? severe risk to the mother's health? massively deformed baby?

(This is an aside and not targeting StumpyStrust) What I find most strange about Americans ATM is the more religious they qualify themselves as, the more likely they are to be opposed to abortion (in ever increasing cases) and yet in favor of the death penalty. Aid to these children AFTER their born? That's a no. The fact that unwanted children are statically likely to have more miserable lives and there's a much higher rate of abuse? Tough....god's will and all that. So it goes.

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However, in reality, social mobility in the USA is pretty much the lowest of all Western countries.

However, in reality, social mobility in the USA is pretty much the lowest of all Western countries.

Ah..I think you need to re-think that.

Really? Why? I'm really curious if you have some insight that I miss.

Here's an interesting read from Princeton researchers, or a nice chart showing the USA at the absolute bottom of all compared countries. I've read similar findings elsewhere several times, and little to suggest the opposite. I'm strongly opposed to "Americanization" of Dutch public policy based on such insights (in addition to the atrociously inefficient US "market-based" healthcare system).

Err..no. Technical superiority is more than sufficient. You only need a lot of bodies to occupy foreign soil. Unless my history is getting too rusty, the last time that was successful was the Romans, unless you count post-WWII...which you really shouldn't.

You forget here the Proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam for example)

There was no direct war between Russia and the US (impossible due to Atomic retaliation options on both sides), instead the battlefield was taken to other countries.And thats where you need the classical army.

If there would be tention between China and the US, or Russia/China or whatever in the futureit will be in the form of said Proxy war in some other poor country. (financing a revolution by rebels, the "protector" country has to step in .. or whatever)

...I said, "the last time that was successful". Are you calling Korea & Vietnam successes?

@Grunnt: It'll take me a bit of time to work through the princeton reference. The other link is too questionable..an organization, which has it's own agenda, and too little in reference material (or I'm missing something). Thanks for the links by-the-way. My option is based on living in the states for 10 years where I saw a fair number of people go from nothing and having little to no educational background build successful business which would be absolutely impossible here.

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